We went to Serafina because it was centrally located for both me and Ali and had a reservation available for a large group the day before–no other reason. With those low expectations, it was surprisingly not bad. I got the gnocchi with tomatoes. Lizzy and Becky were staying with me and we came back after dinner and went to sleep pretty early to wake up for the race.

The Mini 10K starts in Columbus Circle and goes up Central Park West to 92nd before entering the park there. I ran it last year, too, and both years the corrals were packed. It’s a women’s-only race, which is sort of cool. This was the 40th year the race had been run. It was founded in 1972 by Fred Lebow, who also founded the NYC Marathon. He had wanted to host a “mini marathon” just for women, and named it after the miniskirt because they were in fashion then.

I’ve been running a little less in the past few months because I felt burned out after all those half-marathons, so I wasn’t expecting much yesterday. After my crappy experience at the Healthy Kidney 10K, I just wanted a decent race. I decided to rock out with headphones so that I could block out everything on my mind. As I’ve been getting faster lately, I’ve been getting a little bit cocky and I seem to always go out too fast now. I used to be really good with pacing myself to go out slow and then give a big push closer to the end. I did my first mile at 8:45 despite trying to keep it slow. I was feeling strong and thought maybe I’d continue to feel that way and get some epic PR. While I never hurt too much, I also didn’t keep that pace up. I couldn’t remember whether my 10K PR was 57:00 or 58:00, so I decided to pretend it was the lower one and shoot for that. (Turns out it was 58:00.) I took two margarita shot bloks at mile 3 and one more at the start of mile 5 to give me the push I needed to get to the end. As I started mile 5, I thought maybe I could finish in under 56:00, but I ended up finishing in 56:51, a 9:10 pace (or an 8:57 pace according to my watch, which said I ran 6.35.)

Afterwards, we went to Whym for a blogger breakfast organized by Christy.

Beer at 10am? Why not?

Lizzy and Becky

I got one of the breakfast specials–salmon and cream cheese on pretzel bread with sweet potato fries. It was good but really salty. (Or maybe it just tasted so salty because I was so dehydrated from running in the extreme humidity.)

Afterwards, Becky and Lizzy and I came back to my apartment and crashed for a few hours before going to meet up with Tina and Mal and some of their friends at Barrow Street Ale house. I don’t have any pictures, but we drank beer. You know what beer looks like.

I read most of your blogs, but I never get tired of seeing these pre-race/race pics — looks like you guys had a great time! Very interesting to see each perspective on the race — it is clear that even on the same course, no two people have the same race.

Hey! I met you for a second at the beginning of the race. Sorry if I interrupted you and the other bloggers. Ran near you for the first mile or so. Question though… the camelback doesn’t bother you when it moves around while you are running? Anyway, great race but so humid. I PR-ed with 55:48 🙂

@Jen Correa: OMG, no! You didn’t interrupt! It was great to meet you! And as far as the Camelbak…it does chafe me and the moving bothers me a bit at first but then I get used to it. I do need to adjust it to a better fit so these things don’t happen…

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Hi! I'm Theodora. I lost 50 pounds a few years ago and discovered my own path to a healthy, active life on the run in NYC. Along the way, I've struggled with grief, mental health issues and gaining some of the weight back, but you can always count on my honesty! Follow along for all the ups and downs on my journey! And lots of bad puns and wine.